putire

Forms

putire (first-person singular present putìsco or pùto, first-person singular past historic putìi, past participle putìto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūtīre, which is Latin pūtēre (“to rot, to stink”) moved from the second to the fourth conjugation.^[2][1][3][4] The Latin verb is still behind every Romance form, which mean only “to stink”: French puer, Occitan pudir, Catalan pudir, Sardinian pudire and Romanian puți.^[2][5][6]

The verb shares its root with Latin pūs (“pus, matter”).^[7][2][8] The Oxford Latin Dictionary compares Ancient Greek πύθω (púthō, “to make rot”).^[9] De Vaan, as Wiktionary reports him, takes the Latin verb perhaps from a participle *pūtos, from the root Proto-Indo-European *puH- (“rotten, foul”).^[1] Devoto sees the same root as in pus, extended with *-t-* instead of *-s-*.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Giamboni, before 1292, with the sense “to give off a bad smell”.^[7] The GDLI quotes his line on the unburied body of Gracchus, which putto “stank”.^[11] Nocentini dates the verb to the beginning of the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb freely for the smell of rot and filth: Dante's third circle has “pute la terra che questo riceve” (the ground that receives this stinks), and Fra Giordano says of Lazarus that he is dead, buried “e pute”.^[11][12] The northern form pudire, with the voiced consonant, appears in Bonvesin da la Riva.^[11]

From the smell the verb passed to what disgusts or annoys, and to what gives away a person's nature: later writers say that someone putiva of the police informer, or that a treatise smelled of the lamp.^[4][13] Today it is a literary word, and puzzare has taken its place.^[13][14][4] In the 19th century Tommaseo still heard the third person pute in some Tuscan dialects, and DEI records it in the rustic speech of Pisa.^[12][15]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses putire “to stink”.^[7][13]
• 1363 – Putido “stinking”, from Latin putidus, is first recorded.^[2]
• 1761 – Putizza, a cold volcanic emission of hydrogen sulphide, is recorded in Targioni Tozzetti.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To stink, to give off a foul smell: La palude putiva sotto il sole.^{[13][14][4][1]}
2. (literary, figurative) To be disgusting or unwelcome; to cause disgust.^{[13][14][16][1]}
3. (literary, figurative) To arouse suspicion; to betray one's nature: Quel discorso puteva di inganno.^[13][14][4]

Word family

• putizza
• putente
• riputire

Related words

• putido
• putore
• puzzare
• puzzo
• puzza
• puzzolente
• puzzore
• puzzoso
• pus
• Latin pūteō

Usage notes

The present has two sets of forms, putisco, putisci and puto, puti.^[14][8][17] The Tuscan proverb il pesce comincia a putir dal capo (fish starts to stink from the head) says that bad examples come from the top.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 812
4. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
7. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 354
11. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 14, 1058
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3159
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli